Overall, I have really enjoyed this project. I believe it has helped me grow not just as a Photographer but also as a person. I have gained confidence in speaking in a group, voicing my opinions and critiquing work. I will elaborate further on the downfalls of this project as there were some which I have learnt from and will take this experience forward with me. I will evaluate my individual practice in terms of making a publication, my participation in the book fair and how we worked as a group as well.

Individual work.

In terms of my personal practice, I have really benefited from this module. Creating my book publication, “Nain” has given me the opportunity to expand on my previous work which I began last year. When I first Photographed in my Grandma’s home, I knew I wanted to do this more but little did I know I would end up living with her and finding a passion for Documentary Photography and specifically documenting her.

As a whole, I am pleased with how my publication turned out. Although it feels quite unfinished to me as I feel I will be photographing my Grandma, Olwen for years to come, I do feel that what I produced gave good insight to the story I am trying to portray. I was able to capture my Grandmother in her down time, when she is totally herself and relaxed as well as capturing the person she is outside of her home. After receiving feedback from family, friends, peers and tutors I am glad to say that I think I achieved showing the warmth, love, emotion and honesty that I planned on saying through my imagery. I am also glad that I was able to develop this project into using found Photography, which is something I have greatly enjoyed previously. I also enjoyed writing a diary of events and quotes. In hard times in my life, I have written a diary and I think this is something I am going to try and continue to do daily so that I have an archive of my life over the years but also so that I can incorporate this into my Photography projects. When Grandma told me her favourite bible verse (Ephesians 1 v 4), I knew that I wanted her to write it down as it is such a huge part of her life. I think this really adds a new dimension to the work and shows another side of her as you get to know her when viewing the imagery.

However, there are a few things I would like to improve on in the future. To start with, I would spend a more intense amount of time devoted to photographing and generally being with my Grandma. I have been travelling to and from Scotland a lot over the last few months and this has caused the shooting process to be less intense and I think that meant I wasn’t able to get a fair, wide variety of imagery. As well as this, I would like to practice more of the technical side of creating a publication to ensure that it is the best possible quality. From looking at other Photo books, I know what I would like mine to look like ideally. This way, I will be able to size the images perfectly and decide on the perfect layout for the narrative i am telling.

The book fair “Fictive”.

When it comes to our cohort book fair (titled “Fictive”), I think I contributed well to the team to ensure it ran smoothly and was to the standard we hoped. Previously, I was swayed from team work as I have been anxious to do this, but I was far more driven to support my group this time around. Another team member and I took on the role of finding bookshelves, and made sure we found what everyone else in the group was happy with too. Although I was allocated to be in the ‘set up’ team for the day, I also made myself available to help with the taking down of the exhibition to ensure there were enough people to do so safely and effectively. Another point I would make is that I offered to manage the exhibition for an hour slot, something which I would also have previously been anxious to do. This year has definitely been about growth for me.

The only negatives I would point out in terms of our book fair, is that not everyone worked well as a team. Some people sat down and watched as the rest of us set up the exhibition and finalised the lay out. This did frustrate me, but I focused on ensuring I was doing what I needed to be doing to making the exhibition a success and to help my team out. In the future, I would like to try out taking more of a leading role as this is something I have never done before and I think it would be excellent experience. I also think that the experience I have gained this year will help and I am almost feeling confident enough to do something like that.